Unlikely Heroes
by forever-ioand-ever
Summary: So how on earth did an infant survive in Auschwitz? Simple: one unlikely hero.


His eyes flew open. He ducked back into the space, hiding within himself. Peeking over his bare knees, he flicked his dark eyes back and forth, hoping and praying that no one would find him.

But they always did.

When, after five minutes, no one appeared to capture him, he grew even more worried. He scrunched back further into the dark corner, surrounded by hay yet still too afraid to hide his body within it.

They had absolutely destroyed him the first and only time he'd tried that.

After agonizing hours too tense to count, he finally conceded to hiding himself within the pile. He shimmied back, wincing with each poke of the sharp hay pieces, until he felt he was as safely hidden as possible without chance of discovery or destruction of the haystack.

In fact, he was in a small cave of sorts. The hay had been hollowed into a dome-like space, resembling that of the inside of a beaver dam. At one side lay a woman, clutching a squirming infant to her chest.

His first instinct was to back away. He was, after all, nude, and common decency remained ingrained in his mind, no matter how much his tormentors proved that it could be abolished. And the two simply looked too peaceful. If he was discovered, they were discovered, and he wasn't going to let what was done to him happen to anyone else. Ever.

What drew him to return were the child's cries. He'd heard many an infant cry out for almost any need under the sun; but this boy's wails were strikingly more desperate. It was almost as if he wanted to be taken away from his mother. He kicked and squirmed in futile efforts to remove himself from her grasp.

The man hesitantly walked over, covering himself with his hands as best as possible. He knelt down to the baby and carefully pulled him from the woman's thin, bony arms. And he flinched at their cold touch.

She was dead. The child's mother was dead. The infant had been locked into the rigor mortis of his mother's lifeless arms. No wonder he'd been so desperate to get away.

"Shh, shh, it's alright," the man whispered softly, rocking the tiny life in his arms. The baby became even more panicked in the arms of a stranger, and the man began to panic that the infant's cries would reveal his location. He began caressing the child in a desperate attempt to quiet his shreiks, and his fingers found the raised skin indicative of... But surely not...

His heart sank in his chest. He lifted the infant's arm up, gently turned it so as to see them. Six numbers, a small triangle, permanently etched in black ink upon the skin of an infant. An infant! The man was filled with rage, a rage so strong that no other feeling in his life compared to it. It was more than wicked, more than detestable, more than the most vile, most reprehensible, most cruel thing he'd ever seen.

And he had seen a lot.

He had no idea what to do. He was alone, naked, hiding from the cruelest torturers he'd ever been forced to face, with a dead body and an orphaned infant likely slated for the same cruel death as he. And they still had not returned for him.

He stayed in that haystack, holding that baby, until the little boy's hunger led to an outburst almost, but not quite, as terrible as when the man had taken him from his mother's lifeless arms. He knew he had to find some sort of nourishment for the child. Death by starvation was just as cruel, if not more, than the death slated for them both, even if only caused by the presence of an unfollowed conscience. Though not directly his actions causing it, the man deigned that this child's death would constitute more of a murder than did the emotionless slaughters he'd witnessed day after day after day.

So he extracted himself and the boy from the hollow in the hay, and, constantly looking over his shoulder, ran for the barn. He ducked inside, hoping that the "workers" would have left for the night's roll call. They had.

He should've known what to do, he really should have. But panic makes a person think differently. Almost in a frenzy, he grabbed a small bucket and began pulling at the cow's udder. She replied with an angry moo punctuated with a kick of her hoof, but failed to faze the man on a mission. He managed to cover the bottom of the bucket; hopefully it was enough.

He still wasn't sure quite how to go about feeding the milk to the baby. He poured a small amount into the cup of his palm, let it trickle down his fingers and into the infant's mouth, which seemed to work best. The boy probably drank only half of the milk the man had gotten from the cow due to the inefficiency of the feeding process. But he drank. And he was small, he needed it.

The child fed, the man set about looking for something with which to wrap the infant. It got cold, so, so cold durning the night. He wouldn't let the child die of starvation; he wasn't going to let him die of hypothermia.

The cruel forces of fate that had seemed only to spar against him for the majority of his life at last acquiesced to turn to his side. Lying abandoned in a stall was the standard men's uniform and an extra scrap of fabric. The coarse wool wasn't the most comfortable material on the planet, but it would have to do.

It had done for all of them for the past five years.

The man wrapped the boy in the cloth, and only after the infant was not-so-expertly swaddled did he don the uniform. He then continued to rock the baby, lulling the young soul into an innocent sleep. The man himself could not, would not, allow himself to listen to the call of the counting-sheep, baaing in his mind and running circles behind his eyes. He had to protect the baby; he had to stay awake.

The night was long, the day was even longer. Not a soul entered the barn in the morning, nor afternoon, nor evening. The man hid himself in a hay- and dung-filled corner, clutching the baby close to his chest and putting all of his slowly-waning energy into keeping the orphan either quiet or asleep. As dusk settled (he only saw through the cracks in the wooden walls the sun's descent into darkness), only then did he risk rising from the corner, leaving the child, and again milking the now very-distressed cow.

Her moos were not of panic, but of relief, as he milked her, the heaviness of a full udder slowly lessened until she was dry. The man was desperate for sustenance of his own; the warm, creamy milk taunted him as penny candies do a child, but he set his growling stomach aside and attended to the smaller and much more at risk infant.

He fed the boy the same way as he had the night before, palmful after palmful of milk carefully poured into the tiny mouth. Only when the infant refused to drink any more did he lift his palms to his own parched lips and drink for the first time. He didn't realize until then that he hadn't eaten since... Since... At least over a day, now.

He held the infant close to him, cocooning himself around the small form to protect him from the bitter wintry wind that wound its way through the gaps and cracks in the wooden walls. A shiver coursed through the man's body as the breeze whipped through his woolen outfit. Sleep came over him in a sudden wave, and it was not until he heard the sound of the door opening the next morning he was even aware he'd closed his eyes.

"Hello?"

The voice was different. Tentative, gentle, human. Voices like that, he'd thought they'd ceased to exist.

Of course it was probably a trap.

"Is there anyone in here?"

No reply came to the voice but it's own echo. The man huddled behind the animal dung, breathing through his mouth both to avoid the smell and to avoid detection. Mouth-breathing, he'd discovered, was much quieter than nasal breathing.

The owner of the voice sighed, there was some whispering the man couldn't make out. He strained to hear the words and was stunned to hear the intruders speaking perfect English.

"...declare peace to a barnyard of animals‽"

He finally caught up with their whispers and the language foreign to his ears from lack of hearing it. The first voice's exasperation yielded to the gentle command of the second.

"We must make certain there are no prisoners in here, Carmichael. Try in English. If there is a prisoner, they've learned to mistrust their own language."

The man agreed with that. It would be a long time before he trusted a German again. Or a doctor.

When the intruder named Carmichael declared his peaceful intentions, in English, the man slowly rose from the hay- and dung-heap. He left the baby behind the pile, just in case this was the most elaborate ruse dreamed up by the torturers to retrieve him. He would not let them get their hands on the boy again if he could do anything about it.

He stumbled back, physically stumbled, when his eyes were met by not a troop of sadistic SS officers, but two very weary American soldiers. They ran to him as he fell, supporting him and kneeling down in the hay beside him. His whole body began to tremor with a relief so strong that it literally shook him to the core. One of the men laid a hand on his shoulder. He said nothing, but his perfectly Aryan eyes were filled with sympathy. Widened by horror and filled with sympathy.

"What's your name?" He asked, in the most gentle tone possible.

"Jarek."

The soldier took in a breath, his expression seeming dazed, as though he couldn't fathom what he was seeing, hearing, experiencing. "Yes. Erm, Jarek. Jarek..."

The other soldier took over for the dazed Carmichael, looking Jarek in the eyes with a sincerity he hadn't seen in years save mere glimpses at the other prisoners. A kindness, a pity, but the soldier's look carried none of the shame he'd grown so used to seeing.

"Is there anyone here with you, Jarek?"

The liberated prisoner said nothing, only pointing behind the dung heap with a shaky hand. He tried to speak, tried to form the words, but his vocal cords had given out for the day. The soldier named Carmichael rose from the hay and soon returned with the baby in his arms, still asleep from Jarek's quiet lullabies.

The second soldier stared dumbfounded at the bundle in Carmichael's arms. "Is… is that a…"

Carmichael nodded. When Jarek caught up with the conversation, he nodded as well. The two soldiers shared a glance, their eyes going together from the baby to Jarek to each other. Carmichael's superior nodded again.

"We're going to take care of you, Jarek," the soldier offered with compassion. "There are doctors and nurses back at the main complex, and we're setting up a hospital outside the gates. You're going to be alright."

With the words meant to calm and assuage, the soldier gently prodded Jarek to rise. He let the weary, broken man lean on him as he led Jarek out of the barn, Carmichael following with the baby in his arms. The ragtag group slowly made their way back to the camp, following the path Jarek knew all too well. With every step he had to remind himself that these were not his torturers, that he was not going to be hurt or mutilated for the sheer pleasure of a sadistic crowd.

When they finally returned to the camp, it was nothing lIke Jarek had left it. a slow-moving military convoy threaded through the tangle of buildings dotting the desolate landscape. The barracks' doors were wide open, and doctors and nurses in uniform hurried from barrack to barrack, often stopping at the medic trucks to resupply themselves. The freed prisoners, still wearing their loose-fitting woolen uniforms, milled around the yard, crying and hugging each other. They looked back at the convoy and would even reach out and touch a soldier, even just the edge of his sleeve, to reassure themselves that they truly had been freed.

A young woman, her blonde hair pinned back in curls, raced over to Carmichael, or rather, the bundle he was holding. Her face lit up with surprise and amazement when she saw the infant wrapped in cloth. Carmichael handed the child to her and she was soon off again, in search of a doctor.

"Don't worry, Jarek. She's a nurse." the other soldier said to the freed prisoner as he watched the infant be carried away. Almost as an afterthought, the soldier turned to Jarek again. "Is he your son?"

Jarek shook his head. "No. His parents are gone."

Jarek, Carmichael, and the other soldier silently watched as the blonde nurse went about the camp, showing the baby to the liberated prisoners. She seemed to have no success in locating anyone who could identify him. Not a surprise to Jarek, he thought to himself, shivering again at the thought of the mother's cold, lifeless arms.

Another soldier-no, that insignia meant he was a doctor-walked by the trio of men. He waved a hello and gave a quick smile, then walked on. A bit down the road, he paused to remove his helmet and wipe his brow. The nurse came up behind him and Jarek watched her place the orphan boy in the doctor's arms. There was something familiar about that doctor, now that Jarek saw him without the helmet. Something very familiar indeed…

"_How did you find out about me, Adam?"_

_The question still rang in his ears, though he'd long forgotten about answering it._

"_I need to know." Desperation ran through the line. "How did you discover I was immortal?"_

_A smile crossed his face. "I don't know, Henry. Why don't you ask the boy I saved?"_

_xxxxxxxxxxxxx_

_Thank you for reading! This is an idea that got rolling in my mind after this week's episode (Hitler on the Half Shell). If you're confused, Jarek is Adam. From what I found online, it is a Polish name meaning strength or strong or something like that. I think Adam would use pseudonyms (coughcough Lewis Garber) so I gave him one! Also, sorry for any historical inconsistencies. I started writing this at 1AM and wasn't up to checking my sources. _


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